Villa boss Martin O’Neill admits he is not overly keen on Portsmouth re-signing midfielder Patrik Berger.

But O’Neill is keeping the injured 34-year-old for the moment – because he “can’t afford” players to leave the Premier League’s smallest squad.

“Portsmouth have not come in for Patrik Berger – Patrik Berger has come in for Patrik Berger,” said O’Neill.

“Portsmouth have still got to make contact with me officially about wanting to take him.

“The agent (Pavel Paska) has told me Portsmouth would have him, I spoke to Harry (Redknapp) and that’s true.

“But I told Harry ‘let’s see’ because I can’t afford to let people go that easily.

“Harry asked about me about Patrik at the Reading-Tottenham game and I said they have to do something about it, but they haven’t come back.

“He can’t go anywhere at the moment anyway because he’s injured – he trained the other day and his hamstring is still sore.”

O’Neill has 23 players, three of which are goalkeepers, while he has Stephen O’Halloran on loan at Southampton, Isaiah Osbourne about to join Leicester on loan, bids in for Gary Cahill and Luke Moore wanting to leave.

“In terms of fit players, we had our squad at Liverpool last night and that was it,” he said.

“We had to bring back Isaiah, who is just about to join Leicester on a month’s loan.

“It would have been great for him to get games, but we couldn’t afford to let him go.”